Port operations in the
country have been hit by hike in import duties of vehicles and rice as well as the introduction of a fish quota system by the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan. Seaport operators stated this in a statement on Sunday in Lagos and decried the effects of prolonged low activities at the ports.
According to the operators, the ports have also suffered from the restriction of 41 items from accessing the official foreign exchange window by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The National President, National Council of Managing Directors of Licensed Customs Agents (NCMDLCA), Mr. Lucky Amiwero decried the current hike in import duty on vehicles in 2014/2015 from 10 per cent to 35 per cent with an additional surcharge of 35 per cent. He said the policy had brought the total tariff to 70 per cent, adding that this had negatively impacted on operations at the ports.
Amiwero said this had also led to massive revenue and job loss. He said the arbitrary import duty hike led to the diversion of vessels carrying vehicles to the ports of neighbouring West African country, thereby boosting operations in those ports, especially the Port of Cotonou, at the expense of Nigerian ports.
“The development has also negatively affected the operations of dockworkers, licensed Customs agents, freight forwarders, truckers and others,” he said. According to him, the reduction of activities by 70 per cent in the operation of terminal operators who pay the Federal Government based on cargo, through earnings and shipping companies, has drastically affected their activities. The Customs agent said that presently, Nigerian ports had lost about 80 per cent of their vehicle cargoes; as a result of this hike, which has done more harm than good to the economy. “It (hike) has promoted smuggling and led to huge loss of government and private sector revenue to the advantage of the ports of neighbouring countries.
“It is estimated that no fewer than 5,000 jobs and about N30 billion is lost annually to the policy,’’ our correspondent quotes Amiwero as saying. Signals that Nigeria was on a journey to recession came early this year when the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced that the country recorded a decline of N793.5 billion in the 2016 first quarter merchandise trade to close at N2.72trillion from N3.51trillion in the fourth quarter of 2015, the first time in the last seven years.
The bureau attributed the decline in the first quarter activity to a sharp drop in both He said that until government revisits the policies, the trend would continue and the impact on the ports would become progressively worse.